Noose on the News

"Every bloody so-called journalist in this country looks to the government," cried dhoti-draped Ramanath Goenka, India's top newspaper owner (eight dailies, three weeklies), last week. "I will definitely close down my papers if I have to. There is nothing else to do. They think I'm bluffing." Goenka's outburst was aimed specifically at a government move to raise the wages of Indian newspaper employees. But beyond that, it was aimed at a general situation that last week saw Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's government taking a new hitch in the noose it has placed around the neck of a free press.

The noose has been tightening ever since India won its independence from Britain in 1947. The government controls the pay of Indian newsmen, a fact which gives it a club over both staff and management. In 1952 a government commission was appointed with sweeping advisory powers over the commercial affairs of newspapers.

The Indian government also controls all news distribution facilities, and by informing the U.S.'s Associated Press that its license will not be renewed when it expires late this month, India moved toward granting a near monopoly on the supply of foreign news. Agence France Presse got shut out when its Indian outlet, the independent United Press of India (no kin to United Press International), founded in the 1930s by leaders of the Congress freedom movement, collapsed last fall. United Press International, seeking a contract to supply Ramanath Goenka's chain, has been pointedly discouraged by the government.

The idea behind India's policy toward foreign news agencies is to protect its only remaining domestic news agency, Press Trust of India, from ruinous competition. It is an ironic fact that by trying to help Press Trust of India (which depends heavily for revenue on the government-owned All India Radio), India is also giving a near monopoly of foreign news service to the agency that supplies Press Trust: Britain's Reuters Ltd., long a symbol to Indians of British imperialism. It is even more ironic that India, which won its national freedom so dearly, has created a press which is one of the most drably conformist outside the Iron Curtain.

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